Far From the Governor's Office, but Not From Politics

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With handicapping for a Democratic Presidential cabinet already under way, a name that pops up on some lists belongs to a Republican, Thomas H. Kean.

Mr. Kean, the former Governor of New Jersey and now president of Drew University, also happens to be chairman of President Bush's re-election effort in New Jersey, but some analysts think he could become Secretary of Education if his old buddy, Gov. Bill Clinton, is elected President.

His inclusion on such lists attests to Mr. Kean's reputation as an educational innovator. Under him, New Jersey became the first state to allow professionals without the usual certification to become public school teachers. It also attests to his unusual ability to handle issues without necessarily bowing to partisan politics.

At the same time his continued involvement with the world of politics, even while serving as president of a liberal arts college, makes some of his faculty and students uneasy. Many people on campus are asking whether Drew is merely a way station on Mr. Kean's path to higher political office.

"We have no delusions about Kean giving up his political life for that of a university administrator," said a recent editorial in The Acorn, the weekly student newspaper, "but we would like to think that during his tenure here, however brief, Kean would act more like a president, and less like a governor." No 'Political Eunuch'

Typically, Mr. Kean says he understands those concerns but will go his own way and take the consequences. "You can't expect someone to become a political eunuch just because he's president of a university," he said on a recent walk across the leafy Drew campus in Madison. "You've got to take on controversy from time to time. You've got to do things that people disagree with."

To most college presidents, partisan politics is laced with trouble; someone not as affable in character or moderate in politics as Mr. Kean might not be able to pull off such a double role. But three years ago Drew's trustees took a chance on him, hoping his record of education reforms, and his large circle of friends, would help revive the 125-year-old university, which has 2,100 students on its campus, about 20 miles from Newark.

By most counts, Mr. Kean has given Drew a higher profile. Applications, student test scores and overall donations are up.

"He's great for us because of the p.r. factor," said Thomas G. Ward, a senior political science major from Parsippany who is enrolled in Mr. Kean's seminar, titled "Governing a State." Kean's 'Terrific Drawback'

Before Drew appointed him its 10th president, Mr. Kean, who is 57 years old, had no experience running a university. He has a bachelor's degree in history from Princeton and a master's degree in history and education from Columbia, but no Ph.D.; his teaching experience amounts to the two and a half years he taught history at St. Mark's Preparatory School in Southborough, Mass., where he had been a student.

"His lack of qualifications and experience as a scholar has been a terrific drawback," said Rosalind S. Seneca, a professor of economics at Drew and one of Mr. Kean's most ardent critics. "He wants to run the university as though it were a corporation or a political organization. He sees everything in terms of constituencies and wants to maintain control."

But in his penny loafers and blue blazer, Mr. Kean looks the part of a college president. And his resume includes 10 years as a legislator and eight years as chief executive of one of the nation's most complicated states.

During that time education was one of his chief concerns. Along with Governor Clinton, he was one of the prime movers at the National Governors' Association's Conference on Education in 1989.

Among Mr. Kean's most significant educational innovations in New Jersey was the alternate route program, which makes it possible for any college graduate to become a public school teacher, bypassing standard teacher's certification requirements. New Jersey also issued its first state report cards for school districts during his administration, adopted statewide proficiency standards for students and substantially raised starting salaries for teachers.

Mr. Kean said many of the principles he followed in Trenton apply to running a university.

"Someone asked me the other day to compare the two jobs, and I said that they are basically the same thing," Mr. Kean said. "I still have to deal with constituency groups with a lot of their own interests, and I'm still working with a whole bunch of people I can't fire."

Because he can appeal to people across the spectrum, Mr. Kean has become a valuable adviser to President Bush. Last summer, Mr. Bush invited Mr. Kean to a lunch at the White House with Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander, who is also a former governor and university president; Benno C. Schmidt Jr., who had just quit as president of Yale to start a national system of private schools for Whittle Communications, and Christopher Whittle, that company's president.

Mr. Kean said Mr. Bush was worried that the Whittle effort would interfere with the Government's New American Schools Development Corporation, a school reform effort that Mr. Kean heads. Mr. Kean said that what the Whittle group was proposing were "models for what might be done with less money to educate kids better."

"If they're able to do that, a lot of public schools, in order to compete, would start making some of these changes also," he said. Changes at Drew

After he left the Governor's office, Mr. Kean said, he had offers from a number of universities but picked the $125,000-a-year position at Drew because, he said, he wanted to establish a national model of higher education and felt he could have more influence in less time at a small institution. Drew is also a 20-minute drive from his home.

He wasted no time making his mark. He replaced most of the university's top officials and brought in several from state government.

Soon after Mr. Kean arrived donors gave the university $2 million, which he used to start a scholarship program for minority students. He also revived an idea he had embraced while Governor: He has made teaching count for half of promotion decisions and started a $10,000 annual teaching award -- one of the largest in the country -- that is Drew's version of a master teacher program.

His first battle over budget cuts, in 1990, was stormy, with students and faculty members picketing outside President's Hall. "People didn't have very much confidence in him," said Gabriel K. O'Hare, a senior from Claremont, Calif., who is president of Drew's Student Government Association.

That confrontation taught Mr. Kean a little about university politics and the value of building a consensus. He named students and faculty to budget committees and made Drew one of the first universities in the nation to put its proposed budget on a computerized electronic mail network, accessible to all.

Almost from the day Mr. Kean arrived at Drew, there have been rumors he will leave to run for United States Senate, or for governor again. He is said to have turned down appointments in the Bush Administration, and now he is amused by talk of his part in a Clinton cabinet.

"I have never made a commitment that I won't go someplace else at some point," he said. He said he's been offered positions in both the public and private sectors. The answer, he said, is always the same.

"What I tell them is that I have an obligation here and I'm enjoying myself," leaving anything more unsaid.

A version of this article appears in print on October 28, 1992, on Page B00010 of the National edition with the headline: Far From the Governor's Office, but Not From Politics. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe